tonight i'm up with a toothache. i almost slept, with C-PAP, no mouthpiece (it broke, i need to re-tool it) but that rotten relentless dull-yet-painful pain of a toothache engaged my mind and made my heart pump me out of slow softness with a shot of the stuff that makes a caveman run or fight when something is causing him... pain. about a year ago, ironically, while flossing i yanked a filling out. it hurts on and off, but now, either because it's finally at that stage, or because the C-PAP dries it, it's hurting more often and worse. taking up pipemanship surely didn't help either. i can take shitloads of pain. shitloads. i cut my own throat once. but that deeply established menacing pain of a toothache gets the better of me. ambesol and ibuprofen have it at bay right now though. and this night is mine. i own this night, like this pain. this domain name that i type in. this computer. these cumbersome claws. zoidburg at the keyboard. i really really need to cut my nails, but they are about as long as they've ever been. maybe slightly longer than they've ever been and i just want to see how long they can get. this is a time in my life where i can test that too. what a gross physical manifestation of exactly what's wrong with me, like this fat and these decaying teeth. i just don't care about me. i'm not a good enough reason to do something, especially something that sucks you into a series of pains in the ass that compound upon each other and attract more and more pain in the ass responsibilities. there's supposed to be payoffs. i agree, if by "payoffs" you mean "pains in the ass". (then don't whine about what you are, neumann. [touche']

there's a toothache in my heart. i have to be careful with it, like how i have to chew my food carefully. i don't like to look females in the eyes. i used to grin and wink at cute cashiers and say silly shit to them to see if i could get them to smile. i used to go after chicks way too hot for me with endless persistence. i used to fall right in love and never hold back. bite down like i had a tiger's mouth. but of course i was an alcoholic buffoon as well and the way i was is what inevitably led to the injury. it was only a matter of time. i was quick, but consequences, like langoliers loomed and when i fell on my face in the street in west palm beach on vodka and clonazepam, they caught me. they had a meal of me, and no mercy either. and the hole left was sensitive to cold and heat and it hurt if it was exposed to the air. and if something touched it, it felt like an electric nerve shock. alcohol alleviated the pain. cocaine numbed it altogether. i thought i was a man who was sure to bleed out. as good as dead. i lived accordingly. and my friends got sick of me so i went away. i found safety. i was lucky to be alive really. i started to be careful. and the sharp pain did subside, but that rotten relentless dull-yet-painful pain of a toothache slowly took it's place. i can take shitloads of pain. shitloads. i cut my own throat once. but that deeply established menacing pain of a toothache gets the better of me.

me discussing higher dimensions. click on the title to make sure the right video pops up, i've been having issues with my others videos coming up in the wrong posts. i left a couple possible candidates of higher dimensional phenomena out: dejavu, daydreaming, memory and thinking itself.

this is an email i composed tonight to my friend Deborah McCarty,  ND ( not north dakota. doctor of naturopathy). She's writing a book and asked me to put together some stuff on higher dimensions.

(my words in blue)

Deborah,

I hope this will be of use to you. If you do use any of it be sure to put it in your own words. Alot of this I nicked from Wikipedia, rather than going through all my books and magazines. As you read through this, consider the Holy Writings and notice some of the similarities and comparisons. The main ones I think of are how the next world is "sanctified of time and place" how there are infinite worlds of God, and the many light and mirror metaphors. Also how the next world and the nature of the soul are beyond our comprehension, considering even the 4th dimension, let alone any beyond that are nigh impossible to visualize for us. Also how scientists say that dimensions can be thought of as degrees of freedom and how the writings talk about the next world as gaining more freedom like a bird leaving a cage. Note how this revolution did not begin until The Bab and Baha'u'llah were in the world. I put some of the quotes of the writings I set aside for my Science Presentation at the very end of this email. I think this brief video by Rob Bryanton does a really great job of making thoughts of higher dimensions more lucid, whether or not his ideas are completely accurate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Q_GQqUg6Ts

Without further ado:

A brief history of Higher Dimensions in science, along with thoughts and sources.

1827 August Ferdinand Möbius realized that a fourth dimension would allow a three-dimensional form to be rotated onto its mirror-image.

1853 Ludwig Schläfli discovered many polytopes in higher dimensions, although his work was not published until after his death.

1854 Bernhard Riemann's  Habilitationsschrift, Über die Hypothesen welche der Geometrie zu Grunde liegen, considered a "point" to be any sequence of coordinates (x1, ..., xn). The possibility of geometry in higher dimensions, including four dimensions in particular, was thus established.

1843 An arithmetic of four dimensions called quaternions was defined by William Rowan Hamilton. This associative algebra was the source of the science of vector analysis in three dimensions as recounted in A History of Vector Analysis.

1880 The fourth dimension was popularized by Charles Howard Hinton, starting with his essay What is the Fourth Dimension? published in the Dublin University magazine. He coined the terms tesseract, ana and kata in his book A New Era of Thought, and introduced a method for visualizing the fourth dimension using cubes in the book Fourth Dimension.

1905 Einstein's special and general relativity theories featured 4 dimensional "space-time"

In 1908, Hermann Minkowski presented a paper consolidating the role of time as the fourth dimension of spacetime, the basis for Einstein's theories of Special and General Relativity.

In April 1919 Kaluza noticed that when he solved Albert Einstein's equations for general relativity using five dimensions, then James Clark Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism emerged spontaneously. Kaluza wrote to Einstein who, in turn, encouraged him to publish. Kaluza's theory was published in 1921 in a paper, "Zum Unitätsproblem der Physik" with Einstein's support in Sitzungsberichte Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften 96, 69. (1921)

In 1926, Oskar Klein proposed that the 5th dimension is curled up in a circle of very small radius, so that a particle moving a short distance along that axis would return to where it began. The distance a particle can travel before reaching its initial position is said to be the size of the dimension. This extra dimension is a compact set, and the phenomenon of having a space-time with compact dimensions is referred to as compactification.

1954 Eugenio Calabi considered complex higher dimensional manifolds (Calabi conjecture). The Calabi Conjecture was later proven by Shing-Tung Yau in 1978. In superstring theory the extra dimensions of spacetime  are sometimes conjectured to take the form of a 6-dimensional Calabi–Yau manifold, which led to the idea of mirror symmetry.

1968 Gabriele Veneziano found a 200 year old equation in an old math book by a Swiss mathematician named Leonhard Euler which seemed to describe the strong force. Euler thought it only to be a mathematical curiosity. Later, Leonard Suskind noticed that the math described stretching, and vibrating strings which lead to string theory which requires 10 dimensions. String Theory states that all the particles of the Standard Model are the "notes" created by very tiny strings, which occupy higher dimensional space, vibrating and moving in different ways.

1981 John Swartz and Micheal Green worked the anomalies out of string theory, starting the String Theory revolution. It was quickly discovered that there were 5 equally valid, yet different versions of string theory.

1995 Ed Witten Creates M-Theory, adding an 11th dimension and reconciling the 5 String Theories. M-theory includes higher dimensions membranes and that our 3d world could be a membrane sitting on them like how a 2d membrane sits on top of a 3d bowl of soup. After M-Theory came many others, Supersymmetry, Supergravity, Type IIA and Type IIB String Theories, Etc.

2007 Garret Lisi, physicist and surfer, writes a paper called "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" explaining all the particles and forces using pure geometry, utilizing a 248 dimensional shape called the E8 lie group. He's getting a lot of attention.

Currently the Large Hadron Collider is searching for new particles predicted by Lisi and also testing to see if any particles disappear into higher dimensions as a result of high energy proton smashings.

Thoughts

(from wiki) If a light is shone on a three dimensional object, a two-dimensional shadow is cast. By dimensional analogy, light shone on a two-dimensional object in a two-dimensional world would cast a one-dimensional shadow, and light on a one-dimensional object in a one-dimensional world would cast a zero-dimensional shadow, that is, a point of non-light. Going the other way, one may infer that light shone on a four-dimensional object in a four-dimensional world would cast a three-dimensional shadow. Likewise with reflections.

In 1d its "points" that just have positions, or merely probability clouds of their position depending on whether or not you are looking at them. in 2d its "planes" or "faces" that have area. in 3d it's "bodies" that have volume and mass. In 4d it is "events". The greater the mass of a 3d body, the greater gravitational pull it has through space. I think events have something like mass, which is how likely they are to occur. An event with a great amount of "time mass/probability of occurrence" has a greater syncronistic (time gravity) pull through TIME. The synchronicity/coincidence phenomena as well as clairvoyance can be explained by the "gravity" of events reaching us through time, either "feeling" it (or getting pulled by it), or "seeing" it with your inner soul eye. I believe that fixed events, as described in the writings have actual infinite pull. I think this causes miracles like the Bab's survival of the firing squad.

Beings in lesser dimensions can feel the effects of higher dimensions but cannot explain them. it shows up as "mumbo jumbo".

soul
subconscious/inner savant (heart?)
mind/brain
ego/self

The closer you get to your soul the greater and less restrained/filtered your vision is of the 4d landscape along with your ability to sense the time gravity of future events. I wonder if the great future event, which is the fulfillment of life's purpose (omega point), is pulling everything toward it through space and time and always has been.

Sources
The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene
Hyperspace by Michio Kaku
Hinton, Charles Howard (1904). Fourth Dimension. ISBN 1-5645-9708. http://www.archive.org/details/fourthdimension00hintarch.
# Klein, Oskar (1926). "Quantentheorie und fünfdimensionale Relativitätstheorie". Zeitschrift für Physik a Hadrons and Nuclei 37  (12): 895–906. doi:10.1007/BF01397481.
# Witten, Edward (1981). "Search for a realistic Kaluza-Klein theory". Nuclear Physics B 186 (3): 412–428. doi:10.1016/0550-3213(81)90021-3.

i haven't written in a while so i'll do that tonight. i did nothing all day. well. not nothing, but i didn't leave the house. i made music. i watched alot of stuff. had some conversations. wrote a report for national. cooked food. had my pipe. made some calls. listened to some good music. spent the whole day pretty much right in this chair though and i'm feeling a bit cyber sick. that's my word for how you feel after being at the computer for too long. i definitely smoked way too much. my corn cob pipe is falling apart too. sucks that i'm addicted again. its nice though too. it really is a great way to punctuate time. the power went out last sunday and i haven't reset any of the clocks yet. i hate doing that. its one of those things that's really easy to do, yet in my mind feels like a task. like something holds me back. it must be the idea of putting myself in a countdown of sorts. where moments come to an end. days come to an end and i'm dragged closer to looming due dates of bills. dragged towards reckonings.

i'm still at odds with something big. life. american life anyway. maybe life of this period in history. i have circular thoughts. ones that start with something i don't like, or that is bad or dangerous, then scanning all the possible fixes and only finding cliche adages that i hate. things i eschew. it amounts to a nasty background feeling of fucking up. like how i always felt in school. being there to do work and get good grades but just not doing it. worrying about it, but just not doing it. seeing everyone else doing it, but just unable to bring myself to do it. hating it. thinking of it as awful and bad in general. this shitty thing. this obligation. this thing associated with fear of consequence. fear of having a bad life. not cutting it. not being up to snuff, etc. not having enough money. not being respected. not being happy. becoming a bum. not being good enough to have a girlfriend. i can hear all the warnings people said to me all my life. "if you don't do this and this, you're gonna end up...." with their eyes bugged out in an expression to try to scare me. try to sheepdog me into doing things that suck and lead to more and more sucky obligations. more maintenance. more balls to juggle. more systems. more things that can go wrong. that just isn't life to me. call me crazy or lazy or mentally ill or whatever you want. that isn't life to me. this rhetoric about life being hard work as if that is good and something to be proud of makes me literally sick. pride in one's self makes me sicker. self makes me sickest. i think of all the douche-bags in the world wrapped up in themselves. actually thinking that it matters "who" they are. working so hard to "be somebody" and believing they are entitled to anything at all. putting so much time and energy into a stupid job. giving a shit about whatever industry they are in. actually getting emotional about things like office supplies. ughh i could go on and on.

my thoughts vacillate from feeling like a selfish lazy piece of shit to that i am mentally ill to that i don't belong here at all. to that i'm right and i deserve freedom. and i do have value to many people. and my thoughts are important. my life is important. i dunno. i'm definitely rambling though. not in the best mood tonight. sorry. whatever. one day i will find my way out of this right. and it will be on my terms.

my love is not a hamster.

Dr.Light
[erik fucking neumann]

discussing a dream a had and some thoughts.

making the transition to video. click to see.

i don't think many people read this anymore, but for anyone that may have read my most recent post, i'd like to apologize. i waxed way negative because my disability claim was denied and i really lost control. its stupid of me to talk shit about so many people at the same time. i really just meant my old fond du lac party friends and acquaintances. people that i loved very much and still love who say and do things that hurt and upset me. they speak to the old me who still lives in me. they cause me great cognitive dissonance and i react against it aggressively. i was just completely furious and blinded with rage and someone on facebook posted something referring to Jesus as an asshole and it pushed me right over the edge. something like that should not get to me. its just stupid words. just a cynical joke, like i don't make them too. i can't make people believe like me. words are shit. arguments are shit. anger is shit. religion, real religion, that i try again and again to describe and defend, is a thing of the heart. its beyond words. its a source of love and unity and a sense of purpose and stewardship of a positive way of life. a ray of light and a shining hope of a better world reaching toward a divine perfection in the name of the idea and feeling of the ultimate loving creative intelligence behind the phenomenon of existence and life. i'm not very good at it yet obviously. i get zealous and talk strong rhetorics that amount to a bunch of talk. i lash out at the "others" to take my eye off me when there's plenty i could do to better follow the precious teachings of Baha'u'llah. "others" is bullshit. there are no "others" we are the human family and for me to have a lack of faith in humanity amounts to a lack of faith in general. it hurts my faith and my hope and my attitude.

i had said many blogs ago that in the attempt to gain disability by engaging with the mental healthcare system i would wind up coming out disabled. a risky thing to play with. Baha'u'llah said there are spiritual cures to mental illnesses and i know that is true.

what i'm going to do next is take my learning to the next level while justifying my existence and try to go to school.

what a cliche.

some of this is sentence case because i typed it in word and i can't be fucked to unsentence case it.

its morning i just woke up (not anymore). i normally don't write in the morning. i normally don't write at all anymore. but its hairy as fuck right now. scary as fuck right now. events aligning. circumstances talking jung style. i placed my order for a really nice A-PAP model to help me breathe at night. the next day i got a letter that i was denied disability benefits. and i lost my mouthpiece. its just gone. i was so happy. i had such a spring in my step on the way home from my shrink yesterday. i saw my life laid out. working hard for the faith. studying all the time. creating presentations. making music. volunteering (my shrink gave me a big booklet of volunteering opportunities). i felt great. and i had a gut feeling that when i got home the letter from social security would be there telling me i got my benefits. i knew it. and i got home and there was the letter. i went inside and opened it and right at the top i saw "notice of denial of disability" and my heart just sunk. i haven’t felt that way since shannon or kelly. my mood was instantly curtailed. everything in my apartment mocked me. i paced and sighed and my mind reeled. my life, my dream that i’ve worked on for over a year went out with the vapors like a mirage. not a dream of doing nothing all day every day, but a dream of freedom. freedom from slavery. you don’t think it’s slavery? look at this: “you want to live? then do this joy-draining thing you don’t want to do from sunup till sundown every single day.” it’s the same as slavery. future generations will look back on it that same way we look back on slavery and genocide etc. it’s barbaric cruelty and injustice in the name of greed. NO ONE will possess half my waking life. not a company or a person. i give my time and energy to the faith because it is my very purpose to do so. it is the religious force that has ever advanced civilization. it is what will save and free us from the current mindsets that propagate the current systems. the ones that destroy and enslave and rip people off. well you either readily understand what i’m saying or you are saying something retarded in your head like “everyone has to work, its just how it is”. go repeat that to yourself over and over and piss your life away for some rich self saturated cunt that doesn’t give a fuck about your happiness if that’s all you think you’re worth. i know that anything worthwhile is work. i’m not anti-work altogether. i’m against abuse. now do you get it? yeah i know I could have a vocation or career if I just put myself umpteen thousand dollars in debt to try to make it through years of school, when I’ve never been able to pass at school because of my bipolar. Not to mention I haven’t been in school since 9^th grade. Not SCHOOL school anyway. My shrink, who has been doing her job for 30 years, is certain I have bipolar. I feel better about having that stigma attached to me than being a lazy piece of shit etc. I have no illusions about it. its not a bad brain it’s a different brain. Operates in a different frame. does not abide the unnatural abuse of fulltime work but can sometimes transcend normal human capacity for greatness.

Anyway. Really. Enough on that. I’m babbling. Back to the story. So after the sadness and disappointment came angry. Fury really. Pounding on things. Clawing at my head. Cussing through my grit teeth. I even screamed “asshole” at the top of my lungs, directing it at God Himself. I was trying to tell myself “we’ll just file an appeal” but I could only see it as more wasted time and bureaucracy and how I obviously don’t know who to trust in the process. plus unemployment would run out first. I got fucked. I should have used lawyers like my shrink discouraged me from doing. I’ll try that next. They don’t get paid unless I win. They are actually on my side. How could I be so stupid? I might have wrecked this now. So I start thinking about dying. Can I do it? would it be bad or good? Could I put my family through that? The Baha’i community? The few friends I have left? I sat at the computer and instantly ross merrill popped up and asked how goes it. and i told him all about it. really ranted and vented and then decided i needed a drink. i was fixing to go to the store and get alot of booze. that would give me the grapes to do whatever i needed to do besides who gives a shit, i thought? but i was too irritated to be fucked to go to the store in the heat. i just ranted to ross a while and then decided to take a trazodone, some maletonin and some kava kava to calm down. my furious thoughts turned to how absolutely disappointed i am in my generation and peers, the majority of which are incapable of thinking beyond themselves, let alone putting together big sequences of thought. they equate intelligence with so called free thinking which amounts to the regurgitation of the exact same hackneyed pride and excuse based rhetoric, designed to green-light immoral selfish behavior, that they have all agreed to agree on. immature rebelliousness against that which spoils the fun = "cool". disagreeing with them makes you automatically someone who needs enlightening and/or someone who does not "think for himself." they literally think rock and metal music is somehow a source of truth and wisdom because the people performing it look and sound cool. as if the point of view of people who need attention that badly could possibly be healthy. it is impossible for them to understand a concept as simple as: "just because i don't like an idea, that does not automatically make it false. and visa versa."  and they all back each other up. i'm seriously done with facebook. everytime i go on there i'm irritated by some simple ignorant shit. i'm only going on there for event promotion from now on. its just a 2-dimensional place full of selfy tweets.

and no one came to my devotional scheduled for 6pm. and i knew it was because of how negative and pissed off i was, yet no one had any way of knowing that. i knew that if i had been happy instead and prepared the house right away when i got home that they would have come. so i wondered if i could have done something different to open the letter and have a different result. i kind of realized that i've felt deep down for a while tha God was not down with this disability thing. i saw how since i started trying to do it i lost this sense that i had only recently then discovered of considering everything God's will and simply going with the flow all the time. a state of grace. accepting everything as "well that must have been meant to be", or "looks like i'm supposed to do this",which seems really dumb at first, but is truly a way to begin to free yourself from the prison of self and also to put your gun down in the name of peace. put your gun down and be vulnerable in the name of peace. well that sort of went away the more i fought for disability. its because of how often Baha'u'llah promotes the concept of work and sacrifice. he says not to be satisfied with the passing of a day and to get up off your couch and don't waste a moment etc. in my head i felt i was going against him seeking such an easy life. truth be spoke, i got it pretty good compared to fulltimers. so i started thinking i could be extra good and do lots of stuff for the faith and that would like compensate. that i could strike some kind of deal with God or something. take care of me and i'll be good. but that is reducing God to some kind of person who rewards and punishes which is the stench of failed religion. superstition. not that that was all i was thinking. the faith is my life. nothing is as important or relevant whatsoever. but deep down i guess i was thinking i was trying to get away with something. i don't know. i do have bipolar though. but its as if i got checked. and the A-PAP was a little bone tossed along with it for consolation. oh and congress didn't pass the next unemployment extension. i'd just like to for once have some stability and security in my life. the feeling of indefinite sustainability. maybe that's too much to ask. i definitely have a long fucking way to go in my understanding and attitude and spirituality. not even 2 years ago i was a whiskey sucking crack smoking cunt. i guess that's a good thought. great things to look forward to and aspire to. i will still appeal this decision on my benefits. i'll appeal all 5 times. maybe after learning more its something i can have and not be destroyed by. in the meantime maybe there is a job out there i could actually get into and feel good about doing. something that doesn't drain me. i have had some shit desk jobs that's for sure. always change always progress. if i am to be what i preach i have to be able to change and let go of stuff i want. one good thing out of this is getting off stupid facebook.

anyway, to wrap this up, i went to sleep after this whole rollercoaster and slept for a looong time. and my dreams were hardcore to say the least. gunfights with terrorists who shot me point blank. dave kraus choking a guy so violently and aggressively while pushing on his eyeballs with his thumbs and whispering to him that the last guy he choked he killed. the utterly emasculated and terrified look on the guy's face when dave let go. getting into a helium balloon based flying machine that was way too small for me with this girl. being in a house and grabbing onto a helium balloon with my arms and legs and floating around. being in this shitty shitty class outside at a series of picnic tables under a roof type deal. everyone in the class a criminal. and me trying to fill a thing out but being too groggy and stupid to do it. there was a system of touching the tip of the pen to letters to get them to go on the paper. and i kept fucking up and scribbling things out. the question was "why are you in this class" or more like "how did you end up in this class" and everyone was making fun of me and it was the classic scenario where i rage and scream and the outburst is hilarious to the people who elicited it, which makes me more mad. i finally told a guy to come out and fight me. he was still laughing and i threw a bunch of punches at him landing a few square in his face. at that his laugh reduced to a smile and his eyes were a little bugging out in a warning. he reminded me under his breath that if he wanted to he could hurt me real bad. he rehearsed this by moving his fist slowly toward my head and having it touch my cheek. his fist was the size of my head. i realized he was right and change my attitude quickly to "oh i'm just fucking around, lets go back in buddy" back in our seats i got back to the task. the teacher mentioned sarah horn. my first girlfriend. i said something about how i knew her and i was all excited. i realized that she was somehow why i was there and i looked up to what i had scribbled out and i could see her name under the scribbles. i said "look, see! its right there! i wrote it before you said it" and then sarah was there. it was really her. and there was much emotion in our reunion. the same surprise and appreciation we would have it we saw each other nowadays in real life. i sort of recalled that what i was originally trying to wrote for my reason for being there had something to do with my mom, but i had changed it to sarah. i told her that i had been on a journey to find her in hopes of taking her out to get super drunk and essentially fall into some kind of wild romance. and i said "what do you say? are you a drinkin' girl?" but the question really meant "do you like me?" and she shhok her head no. and i knew it was goodbye then. it could never work. but it was a way bigger goodbye than that. it was goodbye to an epoch gone by. a simpler time. gradeschool in the 80's and my first girlfriend. all those feelings. and for old times sarah started to sing a song which was apparently our song way back then according to the dream. now the song was "no rain" by blind melon, but in the dream it held great significance and emotion. like "landslide" or "leather and lace". she sang and i sang harmony. and then she was very very young like 4 years old and we were shrinking as we sang. we were under the seat of the picnic table. and barely a verse in my voice cracked and i began crying very very sadly as i sang. the sadness of goodbye really set in. and i woke up. as we were shrinking i was suffocating. and when i woke up i was gasping for air like never before. i was absolutely certain that if i had drank i would have died as alcohol exacerbates apnea. and i had a very very strong feeling that what comes after death is an eternal dream.  and that i definitely DO NOT want to die. i checked my email and there was an email from my uncle chris who has not emailed me in many years telling me he heard i was getting a c-pap and that 2 of his friends died in the last year from apnea. one was in his 30's. i put on "no rain" and i couldn't get past the first 10 seconds of the song.

i did something today. i turned something around in my head. i made a decision. i steered. i let go a bit. i calmed myself down. i did the thing in tetris where you get a piece that has no ideal spot so you just put it somewhere shitty and keep going. my mind isn't generally obsessive like that, but when it comes to doing my best for the faith it can get that way. it is that i happen to be aware of the importance of this all. what religion, real religion, is. and what it's for. how important and necessary it is and always has been,  and that this is the newest real religion upon which the future depends. religion unites. it unites the masses in big common transcendentally true beliefs and this generally saves us from disintegration, which is bad. it does a subtle thing to our attitude and notion of what its all about besides simply making yourself as happy as you can in your castle. its special, this angle i can see. its lucky and good. i oughtn't make be a source of stress and responsibility and obligation and fear, though i often find myself impotent to serve this cause as best i can. i've seen Baha'u'llah's vision. bits of it shining through His translated words. a horizon far bigger and vaster and farther away than the the earth's horizon. the Day Star. the Dawn. this is the end of an age and the beginning of a new one. the age of the fulfillment of all the prophecies of old. the culmination of all the seeking and all the building and all the science and learning and praying. His words are infused with a potency that makes them not like ordinary words. He saw more, more than anyone else ever has. its things put together that would take an ordinary person too much time to put together, thus He was divine. a reflection of God as rare as Jesus. a sign of the great ancient original truth which is reiterated and revealed more and more by each great Prophet who breathes another age of life into humankind if only we could see big enough to see it.

O God! Make me as a hollow reed from which the pith of self has been blown, so that I may become a pure channel through which Thy love may flow to others.

i can see it, it's so close. a bit of light. a sustainable lifestyle. freedom. health. happiness. structure i can grow in. create in. perform in. it's so close.

i had my mental evaluation yesterday morning. i think it went well. i was honest. my mom was there and supported me as did my case worker. they also have a couple letters written on my behalf by friends and family as well as the nod from my shrink. the woman i met with was young and fresh to the job. only a year and a half  has she been doing this. however, she says its not up to her and her job is simply to collect info and answers etc from me to pass on to the real deciders. surely she has clout and say though, and surely we won her. surely... she even asked my mom if maybe it was a good idea that i even had someone taking care of my finances for me. my mom said she wasn't quite sure on that. this is a good sign. hell, i don't even care if i have to ask someone when i need money. i don't spend it unreasonably. i just want all my bills to autopay and the occasional piece of tech.

the other aspect of this will be that, now that my life will be manageable indefinitely, i will have the mindspace and lifespace (and money) to really get living down to a science. really take proper care of my self for the sake of my mind which of course translates to better serving the cause of God and getting closer to God through knowledge and hygiene. i realize i have had this option all along. this is something i could have worked at all along regardless of my financial situation. well, i have been working at this all my life to some degree. i have made improvements little by little. the other thing is, with such inconsistency in my life, like not knowing where my money will come from, or if i will have it, or if i will have to move, etc. makes those thoughts take priority in my mindspace. they make me bite my tongue and worry and focus not on the big/little picture. and by big/little picture i'm talking about the secret trick to living. being able to have the big picture in mind enough to remember to do the little things which support and create it over time. for instance "i want to have more energy (big picture) so i will eat fruit this morning and have 2 glasses of water and go for a walk  instead of eggs or nothing (little picture)." or "my house is not dirty now, but i will still put everything away and throw out all refuse as i produce it so it will never get dirty". another thing is that if i do receive this bounty of disability, it will be as though every day is a gift. something to be very happy about. very very lucky. this is a shift in attitude and consciousness to make me care way more than i ever did before. after all attitude is almost everything. believe is everything. woe to those who don't/can't/won't.

these little improvements are manifold and that is very good. i want to first focus on actual health improvements. drinking more water. taking fishoil and vitamins. getting something for my acid reflux. eating more veggies and fruits. doing more walking. and the C-PAP machine. this will be the most dramatic improvement by far. sleep is so important and right now i don't get jack shit for good sleep. all of this is for my mind. i need it to be top condition. other little improvements can be remembering to pray daily and read the writings morning and night.  this is for keeping my heart and mind in the right place. another big thing will be to track and record my research. catalog it for easy reference. i have been wanting to get into this habit for a long time. i want to put together mind blowing, paradigm shifting presentations which SHOW and PROVE the stuff that i know. the stuff that has changed me. the stuff i can't un-know. i want everyone to be changed this way. i want not only my own potential to be realized, but everyone's and all's. i know who and what i am and what i am capable of and its alot. by God, i WILL do what i CAN do. over time i get better and better at actually doing what i say i'm going to do. everything matters and counts more and more. they say the reason some cultures and races advanced beyond others is because they had a more fair climate and more domesticatable animals to do more of the work, therefore they had more time to think. more time to think. more time to think. more time to think.

now one might say that a life devoid of challenge can only produce one who is lame. on the contrary, there is no greater challenge than setting out to live the true Baha'i life, not to mention working on solving the greatest questions ever asked. i've got my work cut out for me. and i can see how to go about doing it. and i can see that it will take a lifetime. that is good, because that is pretty much just how much life i have.  potentially anyway. praise God.

Dr.Light
[erik living neumann]